Nelson defends coal on national television show

This past weekend, Delegate Joshua Nelson (R-Boone) and his father Mark Nelson were guests on the Mike Huckabee show on Fox News with former Governor and former Presidential Candidate, Mike Huckabee.

The topic of the segment that Delegate Nelson appeared on was about coal.

The show played a clip of President Obama during the campaign last year speaking about how coal, oil, and natural gas production had increased and then another clip of this past week’s press conference where the president has called on even stricter regulations on coal fired power plants even though the coal industry is staggering.

Governor Huckabee asked Delegate Nelson how these new regulations would hurt the industry, which appears to be hanging by a thread.

Nelson said that it could potentially crush the industry leading to even more layoffs and higher unemployment.

He also stated that two of his cousins were laid off just a few weeks ago and that “we just want to go back to work to feed our families.”

Governor Huckabee asked Delegate Nelson’s father Mark, what his thoughts were about the Obama Administration declaring a “War on Coal” as well.

He responded that the President’s job was to create jobs, not destroy them and that he believed that, “all the President has done so far, was destroy jobs.”

This is the second time that Delegate Nelson has appeared on America’s largest news network, “Fox News” to defend the coalfield’s main source of jobs.

When asked how it was to be on the show Delegate Nelson stated that, “It is an honor to stand up for the people of this area. It hurts to see so many people being laid off… so many of my own family have been laid off. We have made progress on the state level with bills like the Selenium law I helped co-sponsor, but Washington keeps pushing us further off the edge. I would like to see our national elected officials do more than just give lip service to fighting for our jobs. I will continue to keep fighting for this county… for our people. I made a promise not to sit by and play politics ‘as usual,’ and I meant it.”

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